This application claims priority under 35 USC §119 to Korean Patent Application No. 10-2007-0098900, filed on Oct. 1, 2007 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to image sensors, and more particularly to a color filter array for reducing crosstalk between pixels, an image sensor having the same, and an image pickup apparatus having the image sensor.
2. Background of the Invention
An image pickup apparatus includes a photo sensing device for converting light into electric signals. The image pickup apparatus is classified into a charge-coupled device (CCD) type and a CMOS image sensor (CIS) type depending on the kind of photo sensing device. The CIS type is currently used in many fields instead of the CCD type because of its characteristics of low-voltage operation, less power consumption, standard complimentary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process and high integration as compared with the CCD type.
A CIS solid image pickup apparatus is installed in a portable camera, a digital still camera and the like to pick up images that are converted into electric signals that are transmitted to a digital signal processor. The digital signal processor performs signal processing on color image data (R, G, and B data) outputted from the CIS solid image pickup apparatus for driving a display apparatus such as a liquid crystal display (LCD).
Photo sensing devices generally sense only the intensity of received light and not the spectral characteristics. Thus, color filters are used for passing light frequencies in predetermined ranges to the photo sensing devices. Accordingly, respective color filters and photo sensing devices are used for a predetermined number of frequency ranges. As a result, the intensity of received light for each of the frequency ranges is determined for generating color image data (R (red), G (green) and B (blue) data).